The Nest of Nessies (Penny White Book 6)

by Chrys Cymri

The dragons lowered the sling. Tarkik’s thrashing tail splashed cold water against my back and legs. Morey flew over to my shoulder. With a good deal of wriggling, the orca managed to back out of the material which had covered his back. He whistled happily as he bobbed just above the surface.

  ‘Finally,’ Raven said. ‘We can dump this contraption.’

  ‘Not in the ocean,’ I said quickly. ‘Let’s at least take it to land.’

  Raven grumbled, but after Tyra had released her side of the sling, he gathered both it and the covering material in his claws. A quick flight brought us to shore, and the dragon dumped the sodden mass at the base of a hill. I bit my tongue, all too aware of his laboured breathing. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘It’ll be better now that I’m not carrying half an akhlut’s weight.’ Raven extended his wings and managed to glide most of the way back to Tyra’s side.

  Tarkik put his head down and set off. Raven cursed as he hurried to follow, Tyra fast on his tail. Sasha called out, demanding that Tarkik slow down and explain himself, but the orca showed no sign that he was paying any attention to her.

  Something large and wooden came into view. I dared to use one hand to pat around for my sunglasses. It was a ship. Five tall masts rose from high sides, reminding me of history programmes I’d watched about ocean travel in Victorian times. The sails were furled, and a chain ran from the front and into the sea. The ship was at anchor. And, as Tarkik led us straight towards the vessel, I realised that this had been his planned destination all along. He broke the water’s surface, and sent out a long, low whistle.

  Black and white bodies rushed across the deck. I felt my jaw drop open. I’d known that Tarkik was a were-orca from the first time I’d seen him. For some reason, I’d assumed his other shape would be human. The beings which were lowering a rope ladder into the sea had the colouration of orcas, namely white bellies and black backs. But they were much shorter, about the height of a man. Their bodies were covered with fur and their heads were those of wolves. An oval patch of white hair rested behind each dark eye, in a similar position as when they were in orca shape. Their long, hairless tails ended in two lobes, like that of a whale, and a small pectoral fin curved from just behind their well-muscled shoulders.

  Morey turned his head to look up at me. ‘The wolves of the sea. Isn’t that what you humans call killer whales?’

  Tarkik’s body shimmered. A moment later, he was grasping the ladder with webbed paws. As his much smaller shape emerged from the sea, Raven grumbled, ‘It would’ve been so much easier to carry him like that.’

  ‘The water at WaterWorld affected his abilities,’ I reminded the dragon.

  Morey sniffed. ‘Or so he claimed.’

  ‘You doubt him?’

  ‘If he wanted us to bring him to a ship, he could have simply said so.’

  Tarkik had reached the deck and pulled himself on board. Water dripped from his fur as he raised one arm. ‘Friends, join us,’ he said in a thickly accented English. ‘You are welcome on my ship.’

  Sasha kicked off her boots. They splashed into the water, followed a moment later by the bathrobe. She leapt from Tyra’s neck, diving neatly into the sea. When she emerged, she swam over to the ladder and began to climb the rungs.

  ‘If you don’t mind,’ I said to Raven, ‘I’d rather be lowered to the deck.’

  ‘And how do you suggest I do that?’

  Sasha had finished her climb and was standing next to Tarkik. Morey took off and landed on the gunwale. The crew pulled up the ladder and gathered one end into their arms. ‘Hold still, dragon!’ Tarkik shouted.

  The rope was thrown towards us. The thick cords curved gracefully through the air, and the first set of rungs caught on Raven’s spines. He shuddered, but allowed me to pull the ladder down to his neck. Now all I had to do was swing my leg over his neck, find the rungs with my boots, and climb down to the wooden planks thirty feet below me. I gritted my teeth, determined not to show any fear to the orca-wolves waiting below.

  The ship rocked gently, making the deck tip from side to side. I decided it was time to follow the advice given to me during my one and only attempt at rock climbing. I kept my eyes focussed on the ladder, my hands holding tight to the rough rope, my right foot searching and finding the next rung before my left foot joined it. And so I slowly inched my way down to the ship. When wood met my boot, I breathed a quick prayer and a sigh of relief.

  Once I was safely down, Raven released flame and dropped down into the ocean. He curved his neck and used his sharp teeth to remove the rope. For a moment I feared that he would simply dump the cords. But an akhlut stretched out a long pole, and Raven dropped the end over the metal hook.

  Tarkik was barking out orders in Welsh. Some were technical, and I was unable to translate them. Crew started running dark-coloured sails up the masts. The chain clanked as other akhlut turned a wheel to raise the anchor. A tall crew member stepped behind the ship’s wheel.

  Raven raised his head to look up at Tarkik. ‘You’ve been returned to your pod. Time you released Abella.’

  ‘About that.’ Tarkik bounded on all fours to the front of the ship, then rose to stand on his hind legs. ‘She’s not with us.’

  The sails spread out in the breeze, and the deck shuddered under my feet. I staggered to Morey’s side and gripped the wood planking near his tail. Ocean churned green and white around Raven as he was forced to start swimming alongside the ship. ‘Then where is she?’

  ‘With her captors, of course.’ Tarkik opened his jaws, exposing his sharp teeth. ‘The residents who wanted me delivered to them.’

  ‘Seems to me,’ Morey growled, ‘that someone owes us some explanations.’

  Tarkik threw out his thickly muscled forelegs. ‘This is my ship, the Taranfollt, or Lightning Strike in your vulgar tongue. I’m captain and leader of a forty-strong pod of the bravest transients to be found in all of Alba.’

  ‘Transients?’ I repeated. As the ship turned, the sail cut off the sun and plunged us into shadow. I felt a chill creep down my arms.

  ‘Akhlut come in two main types,’ Sasha explained, scowling. ‘Transients have always lived in the oceans, rarely coming on land. Residents are more land- than sea-based. Some residents have built boats in order to ply their trade up and down the coast, calling into ports with goods for sale. They are peaceful and law-abiding citizens.’

  ‘We have our own laws,’ Tarkik said with a laugh. ‘And according to our laws, no ship has automatic right of passage through the waters we have always claimed as our own. Residents must pay us for their voyages. In gold, of course.’

  Morey hopped over my hand and stalked up to the captain. ‘And if a resident crew refuses to pay you? What then?’

  Tarkik reached behind him. A moment later, a short, curved sword gleamed in his webbed hand. ‘If they refuse to pay, then we take what is ours.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sakes,’ I burst out. ‘Forget all this talk about residents and transients. They’re traders, and you lot...’ I looked up at the black sails, half-expecting to see a skull and crossbones. ‘You’re pirates!’

  ‘Well,’ Morey said, ‘just for the record, I’m not going to be anyone’s bloody parrot.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ‘Is that why Abella’s captors wanted you?’ Sasha demanded. ‘Have you stolen from them?’

  ‘We’ve only taken what was ours.’ Tarkik fastened a belt around his waist and slid the sword into a leather scabbard. ‘And they have taken someone who does not belong to them. We sail to liberate Abella from their claws.’

  The Lightning Strike was beginning to pick up speed, the bow rising and falling against the blue-green sea. I leaned over the side. Raven was trying to keep up, but his body was built for flying, not swimming. ‘Go ashore and get some rest!’ I shouted back at him.

  ‘But,’ he panted, ‘Abella.’

  ‘I’ll call you when we’re close to her captors.’ I patted my trouser pocket, the knife a reassuring lu
mp under the dark fabric. ‘Where’s Tyra?’

  ‘Gone. Of course.’ Raven stopped in the water. His belly expanded, and he rose from the ocean. Despite my brave words, I still felt vulnerable as I watched the dragon fly towards land.

  One of the crew started climbing the rope netting tied around the middle mast. I watched her reach the woven basket which surrounded the pole, over a hundred feet above our heads. As she lifted a brass spyglass to her eye, I turned to Morey and grumbled, ‘I feel like I’m in some children’s fantasy movie. Kidnapped merwomen. Orca pirates.’

  ‘Captain Tarkik.’ Morey waited until the captain had taken his eyes off the view ahead to look at him. The wind swirled through the black fur of the akhlut’s head, lifting and dropping the long hairs. ‘The resident akhlut must have realised that you wouldn’t allow yourself to be brought to them alive. Surely they’re prepared to defend themselves.’

  ‘They’d hoped that the shoal would succeed in poisoning me,’ Tarkik growled. ‘They were not expecting for me to return to Alba alive.’

  ‘Poison?’ I stared at Sasha. ‘Was it really the water which killed Elisa?’

  ‘It’s what she put into the pool that killed her,’ Tarkik said, lips curling away from his teeth. ‘I pulled her in while she was emptying the poison into my prison. Seems it was more deadly to merpeople than to akhlut. All it gave me was toothache and a temporary inability to form-shift.’

  ‘So you were sent to poison him,’ I said to Sasha, ‘and bring his body back to the residents.’

  ‘Not his entire body,’ she replied. ‘Just his head. His markings would have identified him.’

  ‘Okay, definitely not a children’s fantasy movie,’ I commented. ‘They don’t usually feature murderous mermaids and decapitated whales. Speaking of which, how were you going to get a head back to Alba?’

  Sasha’s lips thinned. ‘The same way we reached your country.’ And her face told me that she wasn’t going to tell me any more.

  ‘You can see why the akhlut decided to use merpeople, at any rate,’ Morey commented. ‘There’s no way any of this lot could have passed for human.’

  My hand reached for my phone, tucked safely away in a waterproof pouch. ‘Morey, remind me to call Midlands WaterWorld when we’re back. We don’t know what that poison might do to the orcas who live there.’

  Sasha marched up to Tarkik. ‘You can still let me hand you over. Then I can take Abella home.’

  ‘Home for Abella, yes,’ he retorted. ‘Not for you. You’re stuck with legs.’

  ‘And, if I’m not wrong,’ Morey reminded me, ‘she’ll also have lost the ability to breathe underwater. It’s linked to having a tail.’

  ‘I can live on the house-rafts.’

  ‘Until the next storm. Then what will you do? You can’t dive to escape the winds and the waves.’ Tarkik leaned in as close as his long muzzle would allow. ‘You could join us. Live on the Lightning Strike.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that,’ I said quickly. ‘I’ll find you a place in Lloegyr. There’s a community I know--’

  ‘On land?’ Sasha asked. ‘Far away from the sea?’

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted sadly. ‘Llanbedr. It’s a city.’

  ‘Stay here,’ Tarkik urged. ‘There are several members of my crew in marrying age. Two males, both experienced in the ways of the sea and with a bit of gold to their names. And one female, if that’s more to your fancy.’

  ‘And you would trust her?’ I asked. ‘After she tried to kill you?’

  Tarkik laughed. ‘She failed, and she has no reason to try again. Her courage would be an asset to this ship.’

  A poisoner on board wouldn’t have allowed me to sleep at night, but then, I wasn’t an akhlut. ‘What are we going to do?’ I asked Morey quietly. ‘We can’t let them attack another ship.’

  ‘I don’t see how we can stop them. Besides, there’s an important question we haven’t asked.’ Morey’s claws gripped the gunwale as he walked over to Tarkik. ‘Why would the residents want to see you dead? What does that solve? Surely someone else would become captain of this ship, and the piracy would continue.’

  Tarkik dropped to all fours to bring his head level with the gryphon. ‘No. The ship is passed down through the bloodline. The Lightning Strike became mine upon my mother’s death. But I’ve not had any children. If I die without issue, the ship cannot be given to another. If the pod had proof of my death, the Lightning Strike would be set on fire and set adrift upon the sea. The pod would then find other ships on which to serve.’

  Morey’s tail lashed against the wood. ‘You aren’t married?’

  ‘I have been. But I made a bad choice. She couldn’t give me children.’ Tarkik growled. ‘I knew this, but I married her anyway.’

  My mouth was dry. I pulled out my water bottle and took a quick gulp of warm water. ‘You married outside your species, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes. A merwoman.’

  ‘Abella,’ Sasha said bitterly. ‘And you did not deserve her. Time and again, she begged you to give up your piracy, to commit to life in the shoal. But you always swam off to continue your thieving ways. You broke her heart!’

  Tarkik raised himself to once again stand on his hind legs, the white fur of his chest gleaming in the sun. ‘I’m a hunter. I simply go after ships and gold rather than fish and seals.’

  ‘So that’s why the residents chose to kidnap Abella,’ I said. ‘They must have known that you’d spent time with her shoal, and so you’d trust anyone the shoal sent to you.’

  ‘My captivity was their best chance to kill me,’ Tarkik agreed. ‘Now they’ll regret their attempt.’

  ‘Target ahead!’ the akhlut high up the top mast shouted out. ‘North, north-east!’

  The akhlut behind the ship’s wheel glanced at her captain, and his ears flicked in response. She pulled at the wooden spokes. The ship tilted and sails flapped as we adjusted our course. Around us, other crew members were strapping short swords around their waists. My hand slipped into my trouser pocket. ‘Morey, do you think I should call for Raven?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To arrange our escape before the battle starts.’

  Morey shook his head. ‘I should think Raven would only want to join in the fight, since the aim is to free someone he obviously cares about.’

  ‘Bother.’ I took a deep breath of the salty air. ‘Dragon flame would destroy a wooden ship.’

  ‘So best not get him involved.’ Morey shook out his wings and flew to my shoulder. ‘I do wish you had your sword.’

  ‘I don’t.’ Another ship had appeared on the horizon. The residents, I assumed, as we were headed straight towards it. ‘I’d rather be a non-combatant.’

  ‘The residents will never board our ship,’ said an akhlut standing nearby. A scar ran between her bright blue eyes, and another slashed across her left shoulder. ‘But, if you fear they might, you should display a mark of your God.’

  ‘I have this.’ I reached down into my shirt and pulled out the obsidian cross.

  ‘That will help.’ She opened her mouth in a toothy grin. ‘Tarkik is an excellent captain. We’ve not had any deaths in the last six raids.’

  ‘What about the raid before that?’ Morey asked. But the akhlut had dropped to all fours to bounce away.

  ‘Look at it this way,’ I said. ‘You’ll have quite a story to tell Jago.’

  ‘As long as it doesn’t make him want to run away to sea.’

  ‘He’s going to be too busy helping Clyde through ordination training. I hope.’

  Morey snorted. ‘Okay, that’s it. I must get through this alive. I simply have to be there when Bishop Aeron is told that a snail shark has a calling to the priesthood.’

  Tarkik shouted out some orders in Welsh. Sails were trimmed back, slowing our advance towards the other ship. I could now see that although the residents were also on a wooden vessel, it was only half the size of the Lightning Strike. ‘They’re not trying to escape?’ I asked the nearest
crew member. When he looked at me in confusion, I repeated the question in Welsh. ‘D’yn nhw ddim yn ceisio dianc?’

  ‘Dim pwynt. Maent nhw’n gwybod bod ein llong ni yn gyflymach. Mae gan hyd yn oed eu math nhw eu balchder.’

  I nodded. Yes, I had no doubt the transients’ ship was the faster one of the two. And I could well believe that pride, or perhaps more precisely arrogance, could cause a captain to stand his ground. Or whatever was the maritime equivalent.

  We slowed to a gentle pace. The other ship was now several hundred feet away. I could see that the residents, although also in wolf shape, were smaller than the akhlut milling around our deck. Their bodies looked less muscled, and the thin fin on their backs rose only inches from the thick black fur. Scabbards for long knives, rather than curved swords, rested at their sides.

  A high-pitched voice spoke from the deck, using a stream of words which meant nothing to me. I glanced down. A white rat, grey wings tucked along her sides, met my gaze. I said in Welsh, ‘I beg your pardon. Could you repeat yourself?’

  ‘I don’t speak that lingo,’ the rat replied in a thick Scottish burr. ‘Gaelic or English.’

  ‘English,’ I told her. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t speak Gaelic.’

  The rat flew past me to the gunwale, bringing her eyes to the level of my waist. ‘I was only sayin’ to ye that it were time I came up. They’ll be -wanting me to speak the captain of the other ship. To demand their surrender.’

  Relief weakened the muscles in my legs. ‘So we can avoid bloodshed. That’s wonderful.’

  The rat chuckled. ‘They always are offered. They never accept.’

  ‘And who is your rat king?’ Morey asked.

  ‘None. I’m freelance, like,’ she said proudly. ‘Broke away from me rat king ages ago. Go back to a rat king, and your mind gets all jumbled again. I wannae think for meself. And the captain, he pays me well.’

  ‘Fenella!’ Tarkik called out. ‘Time to go. You know what to say. All of their gold, and their captive, in exchange for their ship and their lives!’

  ‘Yes, Captain!’ Fenella extended her grey bat-wings. I watched her fly over to the other ship, and prayed fervently that the residents would accept Tarkik’s terms.