The bone flute, p.1
The Bone Flute, page 1
part #1 of The Tears of the Stars Series
The Bone Flute
Daniel Allison
‘Urgent drama and ancient magic… I loved The Bone Flute and devoured it in a single sitting’
Peter Snow, Author of The Shifty Lad
Reviews
‘A tremendous read… no end of dramas, surprises & reversals of fortune… a rattling good plot… wonderful stuff’
Fay Sampson, Guardian Children’s Book Award-nominated Author
‘A born storyteller weaves Scottish island myths into a driving narrative of survival’
Ian Stephen, Saltire Award-Nominated Author
‘I loved The Bone Flute and devoured it in a single sitting. Urgent drama and ancient magic combine to make a wonderful story on the framework of an old, well-loved folk tale. Daniel Allison has the storyteller's gift of linking compelling narrative with lively, poetic prose. An exciting debut.’
Peter Snow, Author of A Rosslyn Treasury and The Shifty Lad
‘A thrilling tale that twists and turns as you eagerly turn the pages. It breathes new life into the creatures of Orkney’s folklore for a new generation of readers.’
Tom Muir, Author of The Mermaid Bride and Orkney Folk Tales
‘One of the best books I have ever read’
Suzanne Thomas, Oral Storyteller
‘Unputdownable - this book kept me up at night! The tale truly transports you through time with captivating characters, evocative physical & cultural landscapes and many storyline twists and turns.’
Katie O’Neill, Youth Educator
Contents
Title Page
Reviews
Free Download Offer
Dedication
Part I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Part II
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Part III
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
Chapter Twenty Six
Chapter Twenty Seven
Chapter Twenty Eight
Chapter Twenty Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty One
Chapter Thirty Two
Chapter Thirty Three
Chapter Thirty Four
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
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Coming Soon
House Of Legends Podcast
Book Coaching with Daniel Allison
About the Author
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As the winter winds shriek and their family sleeps, Grunna and Talorc sit at the hearth-fire, telling the tales of ancient Orka. Stories of trowies, silkies and even the mysterious Silvers.
I’m offering Silverborn as a FREE ebook exclusively to members of the House of Legends Club. Click below to collect and download. It’s fast, free and easy.
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In loving memory of John Martin, who made it all possible.
Part I
Chapter One
Orkney, circa 500BC
Talorc crawled through the forest of dune-grass, listening to the stranger sing. He couldn’t see the singer yet, but it had to be a stranger. No-one he knew would steal out before dawn to sing up the sun, except Grunna, and she was dead.
The wind was fierce this morning, its howling covering the sound of his approach. Talorc wanted to see the stranger, but he didn’t want the stranger to see him. Why not? Because this was Odhran, and no-one ever came here except in Grunna’s stories, about marauders from the sea who stole away women and murdered men, or about finmen who came ashore at night to perform their secret spells.
Talorc reached the dune’s peak and looked down.
Moonlight silvered the sand. Upon the sand stood the stranger. He wore a sealskin cloak and faced away from Talorc, north towards the sea, his arms spread wide as if he wished all the sea-creatures and the hidden stars to listen. His voice was deep and grating and his words made no sense. At his side was a skin-sack, and beside it a heap of seagrass.
The sack was moving.
Talorc noticed this but didn’t dwell on it. Faint voices whispered in his mind as his gaze fixed on the scaled, blue-black skin on the stranger’s hands, on his bare feet and on the coiled tail resting between his legs on the sand.
Talorc knew that he knew almost nothing of the world. He knew his village, half a mile south-east of the beach. He knew the beach, and the western cliffs where seabirds nested, and the rolling hills to the south and their scattered farmsteads. Not once had been to the south of the island, nor to any other island in Orka, nor out to sea. But he knew Orka’s stories. He knew about finmen.
This was a finman.
The sack moved again. Something was alive inside it. The finman went on singing as he kicked it with the heel of his foot.
Whatever was inside the sack whined and fell still.
The finman ceased his rasping song. He walked around the sack, the hood of his cloak obscuring his face, and knelt over the mound of seagrass. Talorc watched as his long, scaled fingers arranged it into the shape of an arrow, complete with flight-feathers and barbed point. The arrow faced south-east, towards Talorc. Towards the village.
The sky was brightening. Talorc’s family would be awake now and at the harvesting soon. He would be in for another skelping.
The finman now went to the sack. Was it really a finman? They were forbidden to leave their island, except to fish in the waters around it. Sometimes folk said they had seen one out at sea, but only ever for a few moments, and there was never any proof. But only finmen had tails, and blue-black glittering scales. It had to be a finman, which meant that this was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to Talorc. He had a story of his own to tell now. It also meant that he was in danger, for the finman was breaking the treaty, and if he knew Talorc was there…
Talorc’s thoughts were interrupted as the finman pulled from the sack a fat seal pup. He held it aloft as it struggled, wriggling as it keened for its mother in sharp yelps. The finman let it struggle while he resumed his song. Though Talorc didn’t understand his words, there was a feeling of finality to them, like the way Grunna had spoken when nearing the end of a story, or the way she had played the last few notes of a tune on her bone flute. The white-furred, black-eyed pup seemed to sense it too and writhed more desperately, keened more loudly.
The finman lowered the pup to his chest, out of Talorc’s sight.
Day had come. The sand shifted from silver to white in the faint approaching sunlight. The wind howled like a bone flute played by a giant in the sky.
The finman reached into his skin-cloak, withdrew a stone knife and held it up high. Talorc’s heart pounded as if trying to break free.
The finman’s song reached its peak. The final note resounded.
The knife flashed down. Flashed up again.
Red blood poured from the pup onto the arrow as Talorc screamed.
The finman turned and looked straight at him.
Chapter Two
They stared at one another. The finman’s green eyes were bright against the dark scales of his face. In his hands he held the dead, bleeding pup.
The finman threw down the pup and Talorc turned and ran.
He ran as fast as he could but finmen were strong and quick – or so the stories said. Talorc would be caught and kidnapped or his throat would be cut. He needed somewhere to hide and there was only one possible place.
The bone-house.
He veered left, crashing through the dune-grass. Soon he saw it ahead; a cocoon of stacked slabs of stone, looking from the outside like any other house on Odhran. He raced around it, reached the doorway and dropped to his knees.
The entrance was a tunnel through the thick stone walls. You had to get down on your hands and knees and crawl to enter. Before that, the door had to be dealt with. Panting, Talorc took hold of the left side of the great stone slab and heaved, rolling it to the right and out of the way. He crawled into the tunnel.
Reaching the main chamber, Talorc turned and backed himself up against the wall. He sat still, sweating, panting, listening. The finman would see that the door had been rolled aside. He would know Talorc was inside. Trapped.
Talorc looked around. Light streamed in through the tunnel, enough to reveal the dark gaps in the stone which led to the bone chambers. Within, the skulls and bones of the ancient island people rested in never-ending darkness. They would help him, if only they could hear him.
‘Ancestors,’ he whispered. ‘Men and women of Odhran. Ancient Orkadi, grandmothers and grandfathers. Protect me from the one outside who wishes me harm.’
Silence. Of course. How many times had he come here in darkest night, to sit and speak to the skulls in the hope of an answer? He didn’t have the gift – he wasn’t a spey.
Talorc heard a noise outside. A shadow fell over the entrance, cloaking the tomb in darkness.
If the finman came craw ling through the tunnel Talorc could kick him, stamp on his hands. No good – the finman would be too quick, he would grab Talorc’s foot and pull him out into the open, or bleed him right there in the bone-house.
Talorc waited.
Slowly it dawned on him that if the finman was coming in after Talorc, he would have done so. So what was he doing?
Light poured into the chamber. The finman had moved away from the entrance. Perhaps Talorc’s speying had worked.
The light grew brighter, dimming at times as rainclouds passed overhead. Eventually he got down on his belly and crawled a little way down the entrance tunnel, ready to wriggle back. Daylight sang in the air. All the family would be in the fields, slicing the barley stalks with their heuk-knives. Today’s skelping would be one to remember – if Talorc made it home alive.
Had the finman given up and gone? It wasn’t safe for their kind to linger in the light; the bone-house was visible from the edge of the village. He must have left. It was time for Talorc to warn his family of what he had seen.
He crawled the rest of the way through the tunnel. Grunna’s flute, which he kept in an inner pocket of his tunic, pressed against his ribs.
Talorc stopped just before the entrance, listening again.
Nothing.
He crawled out of the bone-house, stood up and looked around.
There was no-one in sight. The finman had left the island or was hiding deep in the dune-grass.
Rolling the door-slab back into place, Talorc ran as fast he could in the direction of home.
Jed saw him coming first.
There was no point in trying to avoid them. Jed called to Kellin as Talorc ran up the path to the fields and the cluster of stone-walled, grass-roofed houses and outbuildings that was the village of Yarrow.
They met him at the edge of the fields.
‘Been down the beach, monster?’ said Jed, using his favourite nickname for Talorc. Jed and Kellin both had Mam’s raven-dark hair, pale skin and darting brown eyes. Jed was shorter and squatter, but he made up for it by being meaner.
‘We’ve been working since before light. Had to work harder ‘cos the monster was gone,’ said Kellin.
‘I need to speak to Mam,’ said Talorc, his chest heaving. ‘Now.’
‘On you go then,’ said Jed, smiling as he stood aside.
Talorc knew what was coming. He ran between his two brothers. As soon as they were behind him they shoved him, one hand each, knocking him to the hard earth; but Talorc twisted as he fell and grabbed Jed’s arm, pulling him down with him. He rolled on top of his brother and managed to land one pathetic punch before Kellin pulled Talorc off Jed and pinned him down. Jed took his revenge with a series of well-practiced kicks, stopping only when he ran out of breath.
When he could move, Talorc stood, his cheeks burning and eyes stinging, and limped through the golden barley rows towards where his mother was working. He had promised Grunna before she died that he would stand up to his brothers more.
‘Mam –’
‘Not a word!’ she said, pointing the little curved blade of her heuk-knife at him. ‘Not a word!’ She took a heuk from her belt and thrust it into his hand. ‘The boys’ lunch will be late thanks to you. Boys who work need their strength.’ She strode off in the direction of the house.
Talorc looked down at the heuk-knife. He looked up at the figure of his Mam moving away through the waving stalks.
‘Mam!’ he shouted.
She didn’t look back.
Talorc fell to his knees and punched the ground until his fists throbbed and shook. She wouldn’t listen to him; she hardly even looked at him or talked to him. Just like the rest of his family. Even if he could make her listen, she wouldn’t believe him.
Rising, Talorc set to work, taking hold a handful of stalks and slicing angrily at them with the iron blade of the heuk. Each clump was tossed into a pile that grew until it was time to begin another one. So the day passed as the sun rose behind the clouds and the wind moaned.
Every now and then he straightened up to rest for a few moments and ease the pain in his back. Not for too long; otherwise a warning shout would come from one of his brothers, followed by a quick, friendly visit if he didn’t get back to work. Harvest was the busiest time of the year. All the crop had to be cut and left to dry in the wind before being collected and brought into the barn. There the family would gather for the winnowing, done in day after day of darkness, as winter won the battle of the seasons and took the island in her iron grip.
Maybe he could try telling Rillian? His oldest brother wasn’t as bad as the other two. Rillian didn’t like Talorc but he didn’t seem to hate him either. But what would Talorc say? That he had seen a finman kill a seal pup and pour its blood on an arrow aimed at the village? What did that even mean? It sounded like magic. It sounded like nonsense. Rillian didn’t like nonsense.
What about his father? Da was the headman on Odhran, answerable to King Anga on Ork Island. It was his duty to deal with problems. If the finmen were landing on Odhran then he would have to tell the king… which meant crossing the sea. Da hated the sea and only went on a boat when he had to. And besides, Da wouldn’t believe Talorc either.
Noon came, the shadows of the barley stalks swinging to the east. Mam came out with cakes of dried barley for her boys. She looked towards Talorc for a moment then headed back towards the house.
Enough. Talorc threw down his heuk. He followed his Mam, catching up with her outside their home.
‘Mam –’
‘You heard what I said. Bannocks are for boys who work –’
‘I don’t care about the stupid bannocks!’ said Talorc, though his stomach disagreed. ‘Yes, I went down the beach this morning. I wanted to play Grunna’s flute and think about her. But when I got there I saw a finman –’
At that word his mother’s expression darkened. Looking at Talorc as if he was the monster, she turned, entered the house and closed the door in his face.
‘I’m not lying!’ he shouted. ‘He did a spell, and he aimed it at the village…’
It was hopeless. He turned and trudged back to where his heuk-knife waited.
Grunna would have believed him. It was through her that he knew about finmen. Almost everything he knew about the world came from her and their days and nights spent at the fireside, his hand in hers. When Grunna was young she had been a senachai, traveling from island to island and village to village, telling stories and playing her flute. Grunna never hit him; she used to stroke his hair, saying it was the colour of the afternoon sunlight, just like his Grunda’s had been. His eyes were as blue as his Grunda’s, she said, as blue as the summer sea.
She had died on midsummer’s day. Her body was given to the Sea Mother; the Orkadi didn’t put their dead in bone-houses any more. This winter, Talorc’s fourteenth, would be her first beneath the waves. He didn’t know how he would survive the dark fireside days without her.
Talorc’s stomach was squealing like an angry pig when a shout made everyone in the field stand up.
Da was stood at the western edge of the field with their neighbour Rask, the low evening sun behind them. He was calling to Talorc’s brothers to join him. They sheathed their knives and obeyed, disappearing with Da and Rask over the horizon.
Talorc followed. He reached the edge of the fields and looked towards the beach.
A dark mass lay at the edge of the water.
He ran.
Chapter Three
Talorc covered his mouth as he took his place among the silent watchers.
The sea-wolf lay on the sand at the edge of the tide. Each lap of tide-water carried fresh blood away from it, yet more kept pouring from its wound.
Something had bitten off its tail. Not just its tail, but the rear of its entire body. Talorc knew the question on his mind must be on everyone’s mind.
What did this?
He’d seen sea-wolves before, far out to sea. They moved like dolphins in the way they slipped in and out of the water, travelling always in a pack, on their way to hunt seals or walrus. He’d loved them for their beauty and mystery; hunters the size and shape of whales, black as midnight and white as the moon. Grunna told all kinds of stories about them. She said there was an island where they took off their skin-cloaks and were giant men. When he asked if that was true or not, she said it happened far away, where there was no such thing as true or false.
